Does biofuel-driven crop diversion pose a trade-off between energy security and food security in India? Discuss with reference to the ethanol blending programme.

India achieved 20% ethanol blending in 2025-26, five years ahead of the original 2030 target [1]. The trade-off with food security is real and already visible in cropping patterns — but it stems from the choice of feedstock, not from blending itself.

Energy security gains are substantial

• Blending rose from under 1.5% (2013-14) to 20% (2025-26), with capacity expanding from 421 to about 2,000 crore litres [1].
• Ethanol blending has saved an estimated ₹1.4 lakh crore in foreign exchange [4] — strategically valuable amid crude price volatility.
• The EBP Programme channels payments directly to farmers and mills, easing long-pending cane dues [1].

But diversion is displacing food and feed crops

• Maize now supplies 48-51% of India's ethanol [4]; distillery demand, not food or feed, drove its growth of nearly 9% a year [4].
• The Economic Survey 2025-26 flags "early warning signals", noting maize displacing pulses, oilseeds, soybean and millets in states like Maharashtra and Karnataka [2].
• It further warns of rising edible oil import dependence and food price volatility [2] — forex saved on crude is partly re-spent on imported cooking oil and dal.
• Water is the uncounted cost: maize needs 2,900-3,100 m³ per tonne in ethanol-expansion states against a national average of 2,500-2,600 m³, as farmers pump groundwater [4].

The trade-off is a design choice, not an inevitability

• NITI Aayog's Expert Committee recommended a phased rollout beginning with ethanol-surplus states and matching vehicle readiness [3] — the fuel outran that sequencing.
• Shifting support to molasses and second-generation residue ethanol under PM JI-VAN Yojana uses no additional land or irrigation.
• Linking grain diversion to food-stock and import triggers would slow it automatically when nutrition is squeezed.

Thus energy and food security are competing today only because ethanol was anchored to a single grain. Diversifying feedstock towards waste biomass, with water caps and food-linked safeguards, converts the trade-off into complementarity — advancing both Atmanirbharta in energy and SDG-2 on zero hunger.